Nuclear security

How to prevent theater nuclear warfare

My colleagues W.P.S. Sidhu and Sitki Egeli stress the importance of establishing international norms for missile nonproliferation, for example by expanding and strengthening the Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation. But norms must apply to all parties equally if they are to be effective. If norms and regimes are imposed in a one-sided way, as is the case with the Missile Technology Control Regime, they can't mitigate the sense of insecurity that drives proliferation. The same is true of instruments built on double standards, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Double standards only exacerbate insecurity, inviting further proliferation.

Indeed, proliferators' motivations to proliferate deserve more attention than they usually receive. Among the 31 countries that possess ballistic missiles, nine are nuclear-armed nations that continue to strengthen their missile capabilities as an element of their nuclear arsenals. The other 22 either possess ballistic missiles as a legacy of the Cold War—or are involved in extreme regional tensions that involve at least one nuclear-armed state.